Begin Again
by Himekun
Summary: Dean's beginning to discover this thing called normal life whilst still mourning the loss of his best friend. Then one afternoon Cas crash lands in Bobby's yard calling for Dean, but what Dean finds is not the angel he knew. Can they really begin again?


_**AN: This is my first Supernatural story so I apologise for any mistakes I make. This is slight AU with Bobby still alive and Leviathans gone and such. **_

_**Summary: Dean's been mourning for a long time since Castiel's death, but he's beginning to discover a thing called a normal life. That is until the angel crash lands, suddenly alive again, but with his mind completely gone. Dean's not even sure if it even is Castiel any more.**_

_**Please review and tell me if you want to read more.**_

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><p>Dean wasn't quite sure how long it had been since they'd had a hunt. A week maybe? But even then it was just a common garden haunting fifty miles away. Things really seemed to be slowing down on the Supernatural front.<p>

Bobby, ever the paranoid old grouch kept tabs on any possible omens and was always doing some sort of research, a lot of the time Sam helped him. And the rest of the time, he secretly studies his law books. Dean had found a dry old tome on humanitarian legislation hidden under Sam's pillow one afternoon and that's when he knew things were really changing.

Ever since Cas... Well, since the leviathan situation had been dealt with everything went quiet. Demons seemed to be on vacation or something and after... well, they hadn't seen an angel for a very long time.

Sam reckoned the man in charge was knocking everything back in shape upstairs. Dean was reluctant to agree. Bobby just mumbled something no-one could hear and returned to his books.

What with the lack of hunts and impending doom, the remnants of team free will found themselves facing something much more daunting- normality. They still salted the windows and doors regularly, kept the guns and knives clean and sharp, but they found themselves having to think about things other than the supernatural. Like a home.

There was no reason to travel around and sleep in bad motels anymore, well, not all the time at least, maybe just once or twice a month. Bobby had grumbled a lot about the boys being 'under his feet' but he'd never told them to leave. Dean knew things were changing when Bobby gruffly told him he could clean out a couple of rooms upstairs for him and Sam if he wanted. Bobby's house always was deceptive about its size, and most of the upstairs rooms were left empty and unused, filled with old memories best left forgotten.

So the brothers cleaned and painted the rooms, scrambled up some old bits of furniture from here and there, and moved in to their bedrooms. Dean had freaked out. He hadn't had his own room that belonged to him, that was in a house that they stayed in regularly, that might even be considered home- well he hadn't had that since he was four years old. And that one had burned.

Sam on the other hand was better adjusted to having some sort of permanent residence, he'd done it before, lived a normal life, sort of. Slowly his room filled with bits of old maps, books of lore and fiction and languages. He pinned up a few drawings he had kept hidden from his time at college, drawings that Jessica had done. He even found some weird modern art thing that he hung on the wall and Dean scowled at. Thing had some creepy stuff carved on it.

Dean's room stayed bare. It had a bed, some pale draws, a desk, and a bedside cabinet with a lamp on it. He kept holy water, matches, salt and an iron rod in the top draw, and a few black candles in case he should have to perform some sort of ritual unexpected in the middle of the night. Or if the power went out. The only thing in the room that showed it belonged to someone, was an old and tattered dream catcher that hung above the headboard. And a creased, well worn trench coat hidden beneath the pillow.

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><p>Dean was out in the yard rocking to Metallica as he fixed up one of Bobby's old cars when everything changed. He'd agreed to help Bobby out with the scrap yard, fix a few cars, set some stuff, maybe even get a few of the locals to give them a bit of business. It was bright and hot and his t-shirt was already damp and oil stained. He straightened up and wiped the sweat of his forehead sighing slightly.<p>

Life with Bobby was good, it was safe, it was... lonely.

He cursed himself for thinking it but it was true. At least with hunting you knew that someone somewhere depended on you, even if they didn't know it. People needed you, sought you out. Now, it was just him, Bobby and Sam. And as much as he loved Sam, they were brothers, not friends. He missed having someone to talk to, to get away for a night with, to introduce to modern day cultural experiences...

He missed...

Well. There was nothing exactly he could do about that so he spat on the ground and bent down over the rusty engine in front of him.

One of the power lines near the yard sparked, cracking loudly in the still air. Dean frowned.

Suddenly it sparked again but this time a pile of junk near to it seemed to shake, glass cracking, the ground began to tremble and Dean could have sworn he heard thunder.

No.

He could hear it. A high pitching ringing growing louder and louder as the ground around him shook. The sun seemed to get brighter- his eyes closed in protest and he seized his ears as the ringing threatened to tear his head open. It was unbearable, loud, violent, shaking, impossible.

And it ended.

As suddenly as it had begun it ended.

Dean stood there in shock for a minute, staring. Inside he knew what caused something like that, he knew what could make your head split and your eyes want to bleed and the ground tremble. He knew- but he refused to accept it.

They hadn't seen a single angel since Cas. Not a single one had bothered to check in and seek out their brother, not a single damn one!

"Dean?" A voice, cracked, unsure, almost dead barely whispered his name but it carried in the still air. It couldn't be.

And suddenly he was running towards the destruction, towards the pile of broken glass and bent metal and cracked ground, towards the form that appeared hunched and broken on the ground wearing a dusty too big suit that was ripped and torn apart.

"Cas? Cas!" Dean knelt over the shrunken body before him, desperately begging him to be alive, for a miracle, any miracle that might have brought him back, that might have made Cas alive again.

"Dean." The voice moaned quietly.

"Cas? Cas I'm here buddy, I'm here. Can you hear me?" He reached out for Castiel's shoulder to turn him towards him but the angel shrunk back hissing, head looking left to right.

"Dean!" His face was lost, petrified, confused.

"Cas, I'm here, I'm here look at me." But as he turned Cas towards him there was no recognition on his face. The angel's eyes darted around unfocussed.

"Dean!" He cried. But Dean was right in front of him, looking at his angel, his blood freezing in his veins. He didn't know him, he didn't even know he was there.

Castiel writhed in the dust, his hands gripping his hair, eyes screwing up in pain. "Dean." He whispered.


End file.
